xix, 789 pages : 25 cm

No technology has spread around the world as fast as computers. Even before the internet, information technologies had diffused to dozens of countries all over the world and had already begun to fundamentally alter how businesses, governments, and whole societies functioned. In The Digital Flood, historian James W. Cortada is the first to offer a world-wide history of how computers appeared and were used in North America, Europe, and most of Asia in barely a half century. He shows how other conditions, not just the technology itself, fostered the spread of computers, such as standards of living, education, the Cold War, and economic globalization. Based on archival and secondary research, extensive use of economic data, and detailed country case studies of over a dozen nations, Cortada tells the history of how computers were discovered, invented, built, and used, and the consequences for whole regions. Cortada argues that by now these technologies are the glue that holds together today's economies, and that they are improving the lives of over a billion people who are moving into the middle class. This is the first attempt by any expert to write a global history of information technologies and how they spread. It is an indispensable resource for those who want to understand what is happening today in India, China, and other emerging economies as the Computer Revolution continues, and it offers invaluable insights for historians, economists, public officials, and business executives

Includes bibliographical references and index

How much computing is the in the world? -- Diffusion of computing starts in the United States -- West European deployment begins : Great Britain, France, and West Germany -- Diffusion of computing in Italy, Netherlands, and Sweden -- How Western Europe embraced information technologies -- Limits of diffusion : computing in the Soviet Union, German Democratic Republic and Eastern Europe -- Computing comes to Japan -- IT tigers of Asia : South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore -- China : embracing IT in changing times -- India and the limits of digital diffusion -- How Asia embraced information technologies -- Diffusion of information technologies : results and implications

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